Just Ask!
A Sermon by
Elder Karen Cotton
July 25, 2010
Luke 11: 1-13;
I. Lord’s Prayer
When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he taught them the prayer we now recognize as the Lord’s Prayer. Luke gives us a shorter version than does Matthew. It contains two praises to God: “hallowed be your name,” and “Your kingdom come;” and three petitions, or requests: “give us this day our daily bread,” “forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us, and “do not bring us to the time of trial.”
That is a pretty short prayer; the Lord’s Prayer most of us are accustomed to praying can be found in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 6, verses nine through fifteen. But as short as Luke’s version is, there is a lot packed into it. It instructs the listener in how to praise God, as well as what we may ask of God. Those requests are all for important things: daily physical sustenance, forgiveness of sins, and protection from the time of trial. (Did you notice, though, that Jesus did not instruct his disciples to pray for an easy life, or even for a bigger fishing boat?—Hmmm…interesting.)
The writer of the Gospel of Luke portrayed Jesus as coming to save the last, the least, and the lost people of the world. And he portrayed the disciples as confused, bumbling recruits. They meant well and they loved Jesus, but they never quite seemed to get what he was doing or saying. (Maybe that’s why I like this particular gospel so much—I can relate to the disciples!) They might have been bumbling and confused much of the time, but they were also persistent in their efforts to follow and serve Jesus.
In the passage we just read, when Jesus had finished praying on a particular occasion, the disciples asked him to teach them to pray. Jesus taught them this prayer because it helped them to understand how they should praise God, and what they should ask of God. William Willimon says, “This prayer is not for getting what we want but rather for bending our wants toward what God wants.” What God wanted for the disciples was not naturally what the disciples wanted for themselves, so when they asked Jesus to teach them to pray, these words that Jesus taught them were words that would, over time, form, bend, and shape each individual disciple. And as those disciples were bent toward God, the community in which they lived and practiced their new and growing faith also bent toward God.
II. The persistent friend
Immediately after teaching the disciples to pray, Jesus proceeded to tell them a parable that might seem pretty random to 21st century American city folk. A man went to his neighbor’s house late at night, asking for bread so he could serve an unexpected guest. The neighbor at first told him to go away, then relented and gave him the bread “because of his persistence.” Why did Jesus use this example here?
Remember that he was talking to first century Galileans. In those days and in that culture, bread was the mainstay of most people’s diet. Bread had to be made daily or every other day, and that took some time and effort. Only as much as could be eaten in a day or two was made, so it would not go bad before it was eaten.
The act of practicing hospitality toward friends and visitors was considered very important in this culture. If a friend came to a person’s home, there was a community expectation that they would be welcomed and fed. If that friend was traveling, it was probably on foot. Travelers arrived when they arrived. There was no possibility of their calling ahead or emailing in advance to alert one’s host to one’s estimated time of arrival. So even if a person had no extra bread at the end of the day, they nevertheless would feel obliged to welcome and feed a guest they had not been expecting. That is why the first man in Jesus’ story banged so persistently and shamelessly late at night on his neighbor’s door. He needed help in order to practice hospitality!
Consider for a moment the man who told his friend to go away, then relented and gave him what he so shamelessly banged on the door asking for. Most people who get awakened in the night do have an initial reaction similar to that of the man in the story Jesus told. “Go away.” However, upon gaining consciousness and considering the issue that has intruded on their sleep, these same persons will generally recognize the urgency of a late-night request and respond to it.
So the scenario that Jesus described to his disciples likely would have resonated with them more than it initially does for contemporary listeners. If Jesus were giving us an example today of how persistent we should be in our prayers, he might say something like, “Suppose you are worried because your teenage child who recently got their driver’s license has not come home by their curfew time. Furthermore, they did not answer their cell phone when you called or texted them to make sure they were alright. Would you give up, go to bed, and hope everything works out okay, or would you leave a message on their phone, call their friends and/or the parents of the friends they were with? Would you go out looking for them? Would you have the television or radio on, watching and listening while hoping that it was a very slow news night? That,” Jesus might say, “is how persistent you should be when you pray.”
III. Ask, search, knock
What can we expect in return for our persistent prayers, either the Lord’s Prayer, or the other prayers we also pray as we bend our lives toward God?
Listen to Jesus’ words to his disciples once again:
“So I say to you, Ask and it will be given you; search and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.”
It doesn’t say, “Knock because you might get lucky.” Jesus, in scripture, says, “Knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”
“WELL,” you might say, “that sounds just lovely, but if it IS true, how do we account for unanswered prayer? Or for things happening that someone prayed would not happen?” Those are questions I have struggled with, as have, I would guess, the majority of thinking Christians. If I pray earnestly enough for my spouse—parent—child—not to die from cancer, shouldn’t that happen?
One author has written, “I have learned that prayer is not asking for what you think you want but asking to be changed in ways you can’t imagine. To be made more grateful, more able to see the good in what you have been given instead of always grieving for what might have been. People who are in the habit of praying…know that when a prayer is answered, it is never in a way that you expect.”
Kathleen Norris also shares her opinion that the best guide for prayer can be found in Psalm 46, verse 10: “Be still, and know that I am God!” She further divulges that “this can happen in an instant; (but) it can also constitute a life’s work.” “Be still- and know that I am God.” I think that is a good guide for prayer.
So when we pray, we should be persistent--while being still--and we should also follow the example of Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit in determining what to even pray for. Does that seem like a tall order? Too much work for too little return? These days, and in the contemporary North American culture in which we function, instant gratification, hitting the ground running day after day, and clear answers to our questions are generally preferred over stilling our minds and bodies to pray persistently concerning our needs and the needs of others. But yes, that is precisely what Jesus was telling the first disciples, and the message is no different for Christian disciples today.
The words of Christ in this passage of scripture call for his followers to verbally revere God’s name and to look forward in anticipation to the coming of God’s kingdom. These words of Christ call for the community of believers to ask God to give us each day our daily bread, forgive us our sins, and to conclude prayer by asking that we not be brought to the time of trial. Jesus is saying THIS is what you need. THIS is what you should be asking for.
It sounds to me like this is not a quick project for the Lone Ranger. It sounds like something God wants us to do together, with and for one another. It sounds like something God wants us to do persistently, even shamelessly. It sounds like something God wants us to keep on doing. I think that God has always wanted this for humankind, and that we people need to continually be reminded of that fact and encouraged in that practice.
When the Israelites were taken into exile in Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah proclaimed the message from God to them that after they had been in exile for seventy years, “Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all year heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord.” (Jeremiah 29: 12-14a, NRSV)
So this message of Jesus’ was not a new one—God wants God’s people to search for God with all their hearts. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he reminded them of what the scriptures had already told the people to do—seek God earnestly.
New Testament scholars tell us that the form of the words “ask, search and knock” used in the original recorded koine Greek manuscripts call for repeated, ongoing asking, searching and knocking, rather than just a one-time effort.
You may know someone who seeks God earnestly by praying persistently. You may be someone who seeks God earnestly by praying persistently. If so, you know that prayer is not a magic bullet. Rather, it is an ongoing, two-way conversation between the Creator and the pray-er. Over time, it changes those who pray, as they are bent toward God.
The Reverend Jana Childers has spoken about pray-ers she has known and prayed with. She has prayed over the course of a year with a friend who was dying from cancer. Rev. Childers related how her friend prayed not for herself, but for loved ones she would be leaving behind. Others prayed for Lucy, the woman with cancer. These intercessory prayers that a variety of people prayed for one another formed a sort of web of support for Lucy, her family, and her family of faith as she lived her final days on earth and was ushered through the door to heaven. Lucy did not get healed from cancer. However, Lucy and all the saints praying with and for her did get what they asked for: they got the presence of God.
I invite you, brothers and sisters in Christ, to begin a journey of faith this week—today, even—ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. If you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the gift of the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! Just ask!
Amen.
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